Sen. John McCain barnstormed through a skeptical South on Saturday, campaigning for a Super Tuesday knockout in the Republican presidential race. Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton worked the West on the final weekend before primaries and caucuses in more than 20 states.

February 17, 2008|
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
|Campaign 2008

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday accused his rival John McCain of adopting underhanded tactics from Richard Nixon, the GOP president who resigned in disgrace.

WASHINGTON - For all the millions the presidential campaigns have spent, it still comes down to this: Ask people what they think of Hillary Rodham Clinton and they say female and feminist. For Barack Obama, it's inexperience. Mitt Romney is known as a Mormon, John McCain for his military service.

LOS ANGELES - Barack Obama picked up the endorsement of a leading anti-war group Friday and said Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton still has not adequately explained her vote to go into Iraq.

LOS ANGELES - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney readied plans to run a ''significant'' level of television ads in California and other states that vote Tuesday in essentially a national primary, signaling an intention to aggressively try to derail Republican front-runner John McCain.

LOS ANGELES - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential race on Thursday, praising him as an extraordinary leader who can reach across the political aisle to get things done.

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised $32 million in the single month of January, a whopping figure that has permitted the campaign to boost staff and extend advertising to states beyond the sweeping Feb. 5 contests, aides said Thursday.

WASHINGTON - John Edwards bowed out of his second presidential bid saying he hoped the ''two Americas'' he speaks of so often, one for the haves and the other for the have-nots, could finally be united under a Democratic president.

DENVER - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency would be a step back to the past, turning her husband's image of a bridge to the future against her. The former first lady decried the tenor of his comments in an interview with The Associated Press.